Half of all homes sold in Pinal County last month were bank-owned, compared with 37.5 percent in January, according to a recent report from local analyst RL Brown.

In Maricopa County, 22.3 percent of all sales were homes that had been repossessed by lenders.

The spike in bank-owned properties, called REOs, doesn’t come as a surprise.

Last year’s wave of foreclosures has only grown in 2008 with thousands of Valley families defaulting on their mortgages every month.

Agents say the banks have so many foreclosures and REOs to deal with that it’s sometimes taking months to get a response on a short sale offer.

That’s a major hurdle for struggling homeowners whose only escape from foreclosure is a short sale — when the bank agrees to accept less than what a borrower owes.

One real estate agent I spoke with recently said a couple she was working was foreclosed on while waiting to hear back from the bank on a short sale offer.

The good news is that agents say REO deals take much less time and often offer big discounts. Either way banks are desperate to get rid of tens of thousands of homes, so the deals are out there.

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